Why the Need for Cognition is a Survival Skill

The internet is the single greatest collection of human knowledge in history, but with the answer to nearly any question easily accessible, what purpose does the need for cognition serve in the modern world?

A person's curiosity is more state than trait, and it follows that we can arrange our lives to stoke our curiosity or quash it.

Photo by Fotolia/Sergey Nivens

In "Curious," Ian Leslie argues that curiosity, far from being a self-sufficient quality, is a skill that must be nurtured and practiced to remain powerful—and that it is essential to further growth as individuals and as a society.